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English • Classic • Series 



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SELECTED POEMS 



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OLIVE-R VtNDErLL HOLMES 



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NEW YORK 

Maynard, Merrill 5c Co. 

29, 31, i 33 East 19™ St. 



ENGLISH CLASSIC SERIES, 

TOR 

Classes in English Literature, Beadiag, Grammar, ete« 

■DITED BY EMINENT ENGLISH AND AMERICAN SCHOLARS. 

Bach Volume contains a Sketch of the Author^a Life, Prefatory and 
Explanatory Noteg, etc., etc. . 



1 Byron's Prophecy of Dante. 

(Cantos I. and U.) 

2 Milton's L'AUegrro, and II Pen- 

seroso. 

3 Lord Bacon's Essays, Civil and 

Moral. (Selected.) 

4 Byron's Prisoner of Chillon. 

t Moore's Fire Worshippers. 
(LallaRookh. Selected.) 

6 Goldsmith's Deserted Villagre. 

7 Scott's Marinion. (Selections 

from Canto VI.) 

8 Scott's Iiay of the L,ast Minstrel. 

(Introduction and Canto I.) 

9 Burns'sCotter'sSaturdayNighty 

and other Poems. 

10 Crabbe's The Village. 

11 CampbelFs Pleasures of Hope. 

(Abridgment of Part I.) 

12 Macaulay's £saay on Bunyan's 

Pilgrim's Progress. 

13 Macaulay's Armada, and other 

Poems. 

14 Shakespeare'0 Merchant of Ve- 

nice. (Selections from Acts I., 
III., and IV.) 

15 Goldsmith's Traveller. 

16 Hogg's Queen's Wake, and Kil- 

meny. 

17 Coleridge's Ancient Mariner. 

18 Addison's Sir Roger de Cover- 

ley. 
10 Gray's Elegy in a Country 
Churchyard. 

20 Scott's LAdy of the I^ake. (Canto 

21 Shakespeare's As You liike It, 

etc. (Selections.) 

22 Shakespeare's King John, and 

Richard II. (Selections.) 

23 Shakespeare's Henry IV., Hen- 

ry v., Henry VI. (Selections.) 

24 Shakespeare's Henry VIII., and 

Julius Caesar. (Selections.) 

25 Wordsworth's Excursion. (Bk.I.) 

26 Pope's Essay on Criticism. 

27 Spenser'sFaerieQueene. (Cantos 

I. and n.) 

28 Cowper's Task. (Book I.) 

29 Milton's Comus. 

80 Tennyson's Enoch Arden, The 
liotus Eatersi Ulysses, and 
Tlthoniu. 



31 Irvlng's Sketch Book. (Selec- 

tions.) 

32 Dickens's Christmas Carol. 

(Condensed.) 

33 Carlyle's Hero as a Prophet. 

34 Macaulay's Warren Hastings, 

(Condensed.) 

35 Goldsmith's Vicar of Wake- 

field. (Condensed.) 

36 Tennyson'% The Two Voices, 

and A Dream of Fair Women. 

37 Memory Quotations. 

38 Cavalier Poets. 

39 Drydeu's Alexander's Feast, 

and MacFlecknoe. 

40 Keats's The Eve of St. Agnes. 

41 Irving.'s Legend of Sleepy Hol- 

low. 

42 Lamb's Tales from Shake- 

speare. 

43 L.e Row's How to Teach Read- 

ing. 

44 Webster's Bunker Hill Ora- 

tions. 

45 The Academy Orthoiipist. A 

Manual of Pronunciation. 

46 Milton's Lycidas, and Hymn 

on the Nativity. 

47 Bryant's Thanatopsis, and other 

Poems. 

48 Ruskin's Modem Painters. 

(Selections.) 

49 The Shakespeare Speaker. 

50 Thackeray's Roundabout Pa- 

pers. 

51 Webster's Oration on Adams 

and Jefferson. 

52 Brown's Rab and his Friends. 

53 Morris's Life and Death of 

Jason. 

54 Burke's Speech OD American 

Taxation. 

55 Pope's Rape of the Lock. 

56 Tennyson's Flaine. 

57 Tennyson's In Memoriam. 

58 Church's Story of the .^neid. 

59 Church's Story of the Iliad. 

60 Swift's Gulliver's Voyage to 

Lilliput. 

61 Macaulay's Essay on Lord Ba- 

con. (Condensed.) 

62 The Alcestis of Euripides. Eng- 

lish Version by Rev. B. Potter.M. A. 



(Additional numbert on next page.) 



MAYNARD'S ENGLISH CLASSIC SERIES.— No. 205 



SELECTED POEMS 



BY ^ 

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 



WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES 

BY 

E. H. TURPIN 




>^. Of co^.. 

0,^^\Ct OF 

MAP 25 1898 



2nd CO?Yi;,r^ 
1898. 

NEW YORK 
MAYNARD, MERRILL, & CO. 

New Series, No. 44. March 23. 1898. Published semi-weekly. Subscription price 
$10. Entered at Post Office, New York, as Second-Class Matter. 



\\%z<\ 






4f)00 

A Complete Course in the Study of English. 

spelling, Language, Grammar, Composition, Literature, 

Reed's Word Lessons— A Complete Speller. 
Reed's Introductory Language Work. 

Reed & Kellogg's Graded Lessons in English. 
Reed & Kellogg's Higher Lessons in English. 

Reed & Kellogg's One-Book Course in English. 
Kellogg & Reed's Word Building. 

Kellogg & Reed's The English Language. 
Kellogg's Text-Book on Rhetoric. 
Kellogg's Illustrations of Style. 

Kellogg's Text-Book on English Literature. 



In the preparation of this series the authors have had one object 
clearly in view — to so develop the study of the English language as 
to present a complete, progressive Cvurse, from the Spelling-Book to 
the study of English Literature. The troublesome contradictionf 
which arise in using books arranged by different authors on thest 
subjects, and which require much time for explanation in the school- 
room, will be avoided by the use of the above " Complete Course." 

Teachers are earnestly invited to examine these books. 

MayNARD, Merrill, & Co., Publishers, 

29, 31, and ^^ East Nineteenth St., New York. 

Copyright, 1898, by Maynard, Merrill, & Co. 



/Z-^syy^y 



CONTENTS. 



Cambridge Churchyard, 15 

Old Ironsides 20 

Our Yankee Girls, 21 

Illustration of a Picture, .... 23 

The Last Leaf, 25 

To an Insect, , . 27 

The Meeting of the Dryads, .... 29 

The Comet, 33 

The Ballad of the Oysterman, .... 36 

Lexington, 38 

The Music Grinders, 41 

The Height of the Ridiculous, ... 44 

The Hot Season, ....... 45 

The Wasp and the Hornet, .... 48 

"Qui Vive I" . . . . . . . .49 

Urania, a Rhymed Lesson, Selection, . . 51 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

Until 1884 there stood on Cambridge Common an old 
yellow gambrel-roof ed house, its grounds sweet with honey- 
suckle and shady with elms and Lombardy poplars. It 
was a house with a history. It had been General Ward's 
headquarters, and there Washington and his staff had been 
entertained. But its chief interest for us lies in the fact 
that it was the birthplace and home of one of our best 
loved American men of letters. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes, the third child but first son of 
Rev. Abiel Holmes, was born August 29, 1809. Among 
his ancestors he counted the Wendells, Olivers, Quincys, 
Bradstreets— " the Brahmin caste of New England," to use 
a phrase of his own coining. His father was an orthodox 
Calvinist, " full of learning but never distressing others by 
showing how learned he was." Holmes, then, "had a 
right to be grateful for a probable inheritance of good 
instincts, a good name, and a bringing up in a library, 
where he bumped about among books from the time when 
he was hardly taller than one of his father's or grand- 
father's folios." 

The merry, restless boy was sent to school first to Ma'am 
Hancock, afterward to Ma'am Prentiss, and then to a 
school in Cambridgeport, where he first met Margaret 
Fuller and Richard Henry Dana. At the age of fifteen he 
was sent to Phillips Academy in Andover, and he graduated 
from Harvard in the famous class of '29— among whose 
members were Benjamin R. Curtis, Samuel T. Smith, 
James Freeman Clarke, G. T. Bigelow, G. T. Davis, and 
Benjamin Pierce. His talent showed itself in sparkling 



6 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

verses contributed to The Collegian, and some of his best 
l^nown poems — such as Old Ironsides and The Last Leaf— 
belong to this early period. 

His father cherished a vain hope that he would enter the 
ministry, but, after a year's experimental study of law, he 
settled on medicine as his profession. He studied two 
years in Boston, and then went abroad for three years' 
work in Paris and Edinburgh. In 1836 he took his degree 
of M. D., and he built up a fair practice for himself dur- 
ing the next two years. His dissertations gained three of 
the four Boylston prizes, and in 1839 he was appointed 
Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in I^artmouth Col- 
lege. The next year he married Miss Amelia Lee Jackson. 
A little later he resigned his Dartmouth professorship and 
devoted himself to the practice of medicine until 1847, 
when he became Professor of Anatomy and Physiology at 
Harvard. Alluding to the variety of his functions, he said 
that he occupied not a professor's chair in the school but 
a whole settee ; after a separate professorship was estab- 
lished for physiology his work was limited to anatomy. On 
this subject he delivered four weekly lectures, sometimes 
written but generally extemporaneous, illustrated by 
diagrams, models, microscopic preparations, etc. He was 
an enthusiastic teacher, and the one o'clock hour was 
assigned him because he alone could hold the attention of 
the students wearied by four hours of previous lectures. 
He experimented in optics, improved the stereoscope, did 
original work in microscopy, and published various medi- 
cal treatises. In one of these he attacked homeopathy, in 
another he made an onslaught on his allopathic brethren for 
excessive use of drugs. There are few subjects in medical 
science which Dr. Holmes did not investigate, and that in 
thorough and illuminating fashion. About the time he 
accepted the Harvard professorship he undertook to 
deliver a course of lyceum lectures, and he remained in the 
lecture field for several years. Those were days when our 
best men — such men as Lowell, Emerson, even Thackeray — 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 7 

were engaged in such work, but life on the wing was 
distasteful to Holmes, and he decided that he " preferred 
nateral death to puttin' himself out of the world by any- 
such violent means as lecterin'." He was known far and 
wide as a graceful writer of "occasional" verse; when- 
ever a poem, grave or gay, was desired he was applied to, 
and he rarely failed to respond. Among the best known 
of his "occasional" poems, are those written for the 
annual meetings of the Harvard class of '29. 

Had Dr. Holmes died before 1858, he would have been 
remembered only as "a clever man, a good medical pro- 
fessor, a shrewd humorist, a merry wit, and 'occasional' 
writer," but in that year he established his fame as the 
inventor of a new kind in literature. In 1857 The Atlantic 
MontJily, which owed its name to Holmes' suggestion, was 
established with Lowell as editor. Holmes was asked to 
contribute. Long before he had published two crude, 
bright articles in The New England Magazine, and breaking 
the silence of a quarter of a century, he resumed the thread 
of his discourse with " I was just going to say, when I was 
interrupted "—the beginning of the famous Autocrat pa- 
pers. These papers scored immediate success as a work 
charming and sui generis. There is indeed nothing like it 
in literature unless it be Wilson's Noctes Amhrosiance. Over 
his coffee the Autocrat dispenses wit and wisdom on diverse 
subjects. The other persons around the boarding-house 
table are vividly photographed — the soft-voiced little 
schoolmistress, the landlady's daughter, the poor relation, 
" the young man whom they call John," the boy Benjamin 
Franklin, the poet, the divinity student, the professor. 
Holmes said, " the series was not the result of an express 
premeditation, but was, as I may say, dipped out of the 
running stream of my thoughts." 

The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table was followed by The 
Professor at the Breakfast Table, and later by The Poet at 
the Breakfast Table — works on the same plan but inferior in 
execution, Holmes then tried his hand on a novel, Elsie 



8 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 

Vernier, first called 77ie Professor's Story. He never quite 
forgave the friend who called it " a medicated novel." 
Elsie Venner and The Guardian Angel are not novels of 
plot, but stories written " to illustrate a psychological 
theory of heredity, and interest centers chiefly on the one 
character whose life and nature sets forth the theory." 
Both contain much practical philosophy and vivid pictures 
of New England life. The Guardian Angel, while less 
weird, is more artistic. 

Coeval with The Atlantic Monthly was the Saturday Club, 
which numbered among its members Emerson, Motley, 
Hawthorne, Holmes, Whittier, Lowell, Longfellow, Hoar, 
Agassiz, Sumner, Whipple, Fields— a brilliant array. 
Holmes loved the club with peculiar affection, and seldom 
voluntarily missed one of its meetings. Dr. Sanborn, an 
Oxford scholar who met Holmes at the club, described liim 
thus: "Dr. Holmes was highly talkative and agreeable; 
he converses very much like the Autocrat of the Break- 
fast Table, wittily and in a literary way, but, perhaps, with 
too great an infusion of physiological and medical meta- 
phor. He is a little deaf, and has a mouth like the beak 
of a bird ; indeed, he is, with his small body and quick 
movements, very like a bird in his general aspect. When 
poor Kingsley was in Boston lie met Holmes, who came in, 
frisked about and talked incessantly, Kingsley intervening 
with a few words only occasionally. At last Holmes 
whisked himself away, saying, ' And now I must go.' 
' He is an insp-sp-spired j-j-j-hackdaw,' said Kingsley." 

In 1882 he resigned his Harvard professorship, held 
thirty-five years, and he gave his dearly loved medical 
library, consisting of " 965 volumes and many pamphlets," 
to the Boston Medical Library. In 1886, accompanied by 
his daughter Mrs. Sargent, he made his second visit to 
Europe. He gave an account of this in his Hundred Days 
in Europe, published as a serial in The Atlantic Monthly. 
The universities of Edinburgh, Oxford, and Cambridge 
conferred degrees on him, he was entertained by Carlyle 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 9 

and Tennyson, f^ted and honored everywhere. Personally 
he was as delightful as in his books. Miss Mitford found 
him " a small, compact little man, the delight and ornament 
of every society he enters, buzzing about like a bee or 
fluttering about like a humming bird, exceedingly difficult 
to catch unless he really be wanted for some kind act, and 
then you are sure of him. " 

Holmes' long, uneventful life had been singularly care- 
free and happy, but toward the end troubles came thick 
and fast. In 1884 his younger son, Edward, died ; four 
years later his wife, the helpmate of nearly half a century, 
was taken from him, and the next year was saddened by 
the death of Mrs. Sargent, his only daughter. Longfellow, 
Whittier, Lowell, Emerson, Bryant, these lifelong friends 
had passed away, and his old comrades, Ticknor, Fields, 
Prescott, Pierce, Clarke, Parkman, were dead. The meet- 
tings of the Saturday Club became more and more for him 
a gathering of ghosts ; the fancy of his youth was fulfilled 
and he was " the last leaf." Yet, as he said, he was " all 
alive " to the last. Even under the shadow of impending 
blindness our "laughing philosopher's" merry humor did 
not forsake him, and he explained to a friend that he had 
"a caiarsict in the kitten state of development." Happily, 
however, the threatened calamity never overtook him. 
Dr. Holmes' eyesight lasted his lifetime. When he was 
"eighty-five years young," he could still take long walks 
through the Boston streets, dear to him as those of London 
to Dr. Johnson, and drive through the country in search 
of big trees. Painlessly and peacefully the end came on 
the 10th of October, 1894. Two (\ajs later he was buried 
from King's Chapel. Rev. E. E. Hale led the funeral 
procession, which w^as attended by Rev. S. F. Smith and 
Rev. Samuel ]May, Holmes' only surviving classmates. 

Holmes struck no morbid note. He felt that life was 
good and well w-orth living and his readers "grow more 
kindly to men and more reverent to God." 

Among the best biographies of Holmes are those by 



10 CHRONOLOGY OF HOLMES CHIEF AVORKS 

Kennedy, Brown, and Morse. But Holmes is, as be him- 
self intimated, his own Boswell, and to know him, man and 
author, at his best we must read The Autocrat of the Break- 
fast Table. 



CHRONOLOGY OF HOLMES' CHIEF WORKS 

Poems, 1836. 

Boylston Prize Dissertations for the years 1836, 1837, 

and 1838. 
Homeopathy and its Kindred Delusions, 1843. 
The Contagiousness of Puerperal Fever, 1843. 
Urania': a Rhymed Lesson, 1846. 
Astraea : tlie Balance of Illusions, 1850. 
The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, 1858. 
The Professor at the Breakfast Table, 1859. 
Currents and Counter-Currents in Medical Science, 1860. 
Elsie Venner : a Romance of Destiny, 1861. 
Border Lines of Knowledge in Some Provinces of 

Medical Science, 1862. 
Songs in Many Keys, 1863. 
Soundings from the Atlantic, 1863. 
The Guardian Angel, 1867. 
Mechanism in Thought and Morals, 1871. 
The Poet at the Breakfast Table, 1873. 
Songs of Many Seasons, 1874. 
John Lothrop Motley : a Memoir, 1878. 
The Iron Gate, and other Poems, 1880. 
Medical Essays, 1883. 
Pages from an Old Volume of Life, 1883. 
A Mortal Antipathy, 1885. 
One Hundred Days in Europe, 1887. 
Before the Curfew, and other Poems, 1888. 
Over the Teacups, 1890. 



CRITICAL OPINIONS 11 



CRITICAL OPINIONS 



Most of you have perhaps the impression that Dr. 
Holmes chiefly enjoys a pretty couplet, a beautiful verse 
an elegant seutence. It has fallen to me to observe that 
he has other great enjoyments. I never heard any other 
mortal exhibit such enthusiasm over an elegant dissection. 
And perhaps you think it is the pen with which Dr. 
Holmes is chiefly skillful. I assure you that he is equally 
skillful with scalpel and with microscope. And I think 
that none of us can understand the meaning and scope of 
Dr. Holmes' writing, unless we have observed that the 
daily work of his life has been to study and teach a natural 
science, the noble science of anatomy. It is his to know 
with absolute exactness the form of every bone in this 
wonderful body of ours, the course of every artery and 
vein and nerve, the form and function of every muscle, 
and not only to know but to describe it with a fascinating 
precision and enthusiasm. When 1 read his writings, I 
find the traces of this life work of his on every page. — 
President Eliot of Harvard, on occasion of Holmes' Seven- 
tieth Birthday. 

If the question is asked, Would the verse of Dr. Holmes 
be held in so much favor if he had not confirmed his repu- 
tation by prose replete with poetic humor and analogy ? 
the fairest answer may be in the negative. Together, his 
writings surely owe their main success to an approximate 
exhibition of the author himself. . . As a New Englander 
he long ago was awarded the highest sectional praise, that 
of being among all his tribe the cutest. His cleverness and 
versatility bewilder outside judges. Is he a genius? By 
all means. And in w^hat degree? His prose, for the most 
pnrt, is peculiarly original. His serious poetry scarcely 
has been the serious work of his life ; but in his specialty, 
verse suited to the frolic or pathos of occasions, he has 



12 CRITICAL OPIXIONS 

given us much of tlio best delivered in his own time, and 
has excelled all others in delivery. Both his strength and 
weakness lie in his genial temper and his brisk, speculative 
habit of mind. For, though almost the only modern poet 
who has infused enough spirit into table and rostrum verse 
to make it worth recording, his poetry lias appealed to the 
present rather than the future ; and, again, he has too 
curious and analytic a brain for purely artistic work. . . 
A few of his lyrics already belong to our select anthology, 
and one or two of his books must be counted as striking 
factors in what twentieth-century chroniclers will term 
(and here is matter for reflection) the development of early 
American literature. — E. C. Stedman in Poets of America. 

One da3^ reading what Emerson said of Montaigne (after 
I had passed the iirst half dozen words) the thought of Dr. 
Holmes at once arose in my mind : " There have been men 
with deeper insight, but, one would say, never a man with 
such abundance of thought; he is never dull, never insin- 
cere, and has the genius to make the reader care for all that 
he cares for. The sincerity and marrow of the man reaches 
to his sentences. I know not anywhere the book that 
seems less written. It is the language of conversation 
transferred to a book. Cut these words and they would 
bleed; they are vascular and alive. Montaigne talks with 
shrewdness; knows the w^orld and books and liimself, and 
uses the positive degree" — with more almost equally appli- 
cable. In spite, however, of the fact that all this which is 
said of Montaigne might be said of Holmes, if anyone says 
that Holmes is " an American Montaigne," he must be 
contradicted, absolutely. Holmes was Holmes ! 

There can be no question that lyric poetry w^as his 
proper field. Truly the lyre is never far away from him in 
his happiest moods. His melody was absolutely peifect; 
he could take any form of rhyme ever devised by song- 
writers, and render perfect music with it. He was a con- 
summate master of all that is harmonious, graceful, and 



k 



CRITICAL OPINIONS 13 

pleasing in rhythm and in language. He played with 
measures with such light, natural mastery as Hawthorne 
tells us that the Fawn displayed in dancing. In all re- 
spects his literary finish defied fault-finding. His perfect 
taste could never be deceived. He had more even than 
taste, or judgment, or discretion; he had a quality which 
must be called tact. ... 

Very accurate and painstaking was he concerning the 
literary finish of his works. He wrote a simple, what may 
be called a gentlemanlike style, and of great purity, but 
crowded with allusions, so that it was truly remarked by 
one of his critics, and has been often repeated by others, 
that the greater the scholarship of the reader, the greater 
also the pleasure which he would derive from Dr. Holmes' 
writings. The same thing was true of Thackeray; both 
wrote for educated and well-bred audiences.— Jb7i« T. 
Morse, Jr., in Life and Letters of Holmes. 

Few authors of Holmes' depth have covered so wide a 
field and done their work so uniformly well. He was not 
a great thinker; he brought no burning message; he sel- 
dom struck the deep strata of life; but he knew the world 
surprisingly well, and he touched its life at a thousand 
different points. He skimmed with wonderful grace over 
a vast amount of surface, but he seldom dived deep below. 
Like Pope, he could recut a somewhat commonplace idea 
until it scintillated at every point; with both it mattered 
not so much what? as how? But had Holmes nothing to 
commend him but his wit, he would soon be forgotten. 
He possessed a deep vein of pathos, which, mingled with 
his wit, produced humor of the genuine kind. In reading 
his books one may not always tell whether the tears that 
sometimes come are from sympathy or from laughter. It 
is as a humorist that Holmes will be longest remembered.— 
Pattee's American Literature. 



1 



SELECTED POEMS 



CAMBEIDGE CHURCHYARD 

Our ancient church! its lowly tower, 

Beneath the loftier spire, 
Is shadowed when the sunset hour 

Clothes the tall shaft in fire; 
It sinks beyond the distant eye, 5 

Long ere the glittering vane, 
High wheeling in the western sky. 

Has faded o'er the plain. 

Like Sentinel and Nun, they keep 

Their vigil on the green; 10 

One seems to guard, Lnd one to weep, 

The dead that lie between; 
And both roll out, so full and near. 

Their music's mingling waves, 
They shake the grass, whose pennoned spear 

Leans on the narrow graves. 16 

The stranger parts the flaunting weeds. 
Whose seeds the winds have strown 



16 CAMBRIDGE CHURCHYARD 

So thick beneath the line he reads, 

They shade the rculptured stone; 20 

The child unveils his clustered brow 
And ponders for a while 

The graven willo\v^s pendent bough, 
Or rudest cherub's smile. 

But what to them the dirge, the knell? 25 

These were the mourner's share; — ' 
The sullen clang, whose heavy swell 

Throbbed through the beating air; — 
The rattling cord, — the rolling stone, — 

The shelving sand that slid, 30 

And far beneath, with hollow tone 

Eung on the coffin's lid. 

The slumberer's mound grows fresh and green. 

Then slowly disappears; 
The mosses creep, the gray stones lean, 35 

Earth hides his date and years; 
But long before the once-loved name 

Is sunk or worn away, 
No lip the silent dust may claim. 

That pressed the breathing clay. 40 

Go where the ancient pathway guides. 

See where our sires laid down 
Their smiling babes, their cherished brides. 

The patriarchs of the town; 



CAMBRIDGE CHURCHYARD 17 

Hast thou a tear for buried love? 45 

A sigh for transient power? 
All that a century left above, 

Go, read it in an hourt 

The Indian's shaft, the Briton's ball, 

The saber's thirsting edge, 50 

The hot shell, shattering in its fall, 

The bayonet's rending wedge, — 
Here scattered death; yet seek the spot, 

No trace thine eye can see, 
No altar, — and they need it not 55 

Who leave their children free! 

Look where the turbid rain-drops stand 

In many a chiseled square. 
The knightly crest, the shield, the brand 

Of honored names were there; — 60 

Alas! for every tear is dried 

Those blazoned tablets knew. 
Save when the icy marble's side 

Drips with the evening dew. 

Or gaze upon yon pillared stone, 65 

The empty urn of pride; 
There stand the Goblet and the Sun, — 

What need of more beside? 

67. The Goblet and the Sun: The goblet and the sun (Vas-Sol), 
gcali)turefl on a freestone slab, designated the family tomb of the 
Yassalls in Cambridge churchyard. 



18 CAMBRIDGE CHURCHYARD 

Where lives the memory of the dead, 

Who made their tomb a toy? 70 

Whose ashes press that nameless bed? 
Go, ask the village boy! 

Lean o'er the slender western wall, 

Ye ever-roaming girls; 
The breath that bids the blossom fall 75 

May lift your floating curls, 
To sweep the simple lines that tell ■ 

An exile's date and doom; 
And sigh, for where his daughters dwell. 

They wreathe the stranger's tomb. 80 

And one amid these shades was born. 

Beneath this turf who lies. 
Once beaming as the summer's morn. 

That closed her gentle eyes; — 
If sinless angels love as we, 85 

Who stood thy grave beside, 
Three seraph welcomes waited thee. 

The daughter, sister, bride! 

I wandered to thy buried mound 

When earth was hid, below 90 

The level of the glaring ground, 

Choked to its gates with snow. 



CAMBRIDGE CHURCHYARD 19 

And when with summer's flowery waves 

The lake of verdure rolled, 
As if a Sultan's white-robed slaves 95 

Had scattered pearls and gold. 

Nay, the soft pinions of the air, 

That lift this trembling tone. 
Its breath of love may almost bear, 

To kiss thy funeral stone; — 100 

And, now thy smiles have past away, 

For all the joy they gave. 
May sweetest dews and warmest ray 

Lie on thine early grave! 

When damps beneath, and storms above 105 

Have bowed these fragile towers. 
Still o'er the graves yon locust-grove 

.Shall swing its Orient flowers; — 
And I would ask no moldering bust. 

If e'er this humble line, 
Which breathed a sigh o'er other's dust, 

Might call a tear on mine. 



20 OLD IRONSIDES 

OLD IKONSIDES* 

Ay, tear her tattered ensign down! 

Long has it waved on high, 
And many an eye has danced to see 

That banner in the sky; 
Beneath it rung the battle shout, 5 

And burst the cannon's roar; — 
The meteor of the ocean air 

Shall sweep the clouds no more! 

Her deck, once red with heroes' blood, 

Where knelt the vanquished foe, 10 

When winds were hurrying o'er the flood 

And waves were white below. 
No more shall feel the victor's tread. 

Or know the conquered knee; — 
The harpies of the shore shall pluck 15 

The eagle of the sea! 

* The sailors called the Constitution Old Ironsides because, they said, 
the Guerriere's balls fell harmless on her iron sides. After a glorious 
career the frigate was condemned as unseaworthy, and it was pro- 
posed to break her up. The proposition excited popular indignation. 
This poem, Holmes tells us, was written in 1830 " with a pencil in the 
white chamber, stans pede in uno., pretty nearly." It was first published 
in the Boston Daily Advertiser, then copied in other papers, and 
printed on handbills circulated in Washington. It saved the old vessel 
and won fame for its author. We hear in it an echo of the popular 
poetry of the day— such as, "Stand! the ground's your own, my 
braves ! " 

15. Harpies : In classical mythology, greedy, loathsome winged 
monsters, having heads and bodies like women and extremities like 
birds; the term is applied to greedy persons, plunderers. 



20 



OUR YANKEE GIRLS 21 

better that her shattered hulk 

Should sink beneath the wave; 
Her thunders shook the mighty deep, 

And there should be her grave; 
Nail to the mast her holy flag, 

Set every threadbare sail, 
And give her to the god of storms, — 

The lightning and the gale! 



OUR YANKEE GIRLS 

Let greener lands and bluer skies, 

If such the wide earth shows. 
With fairer cheeks and brighter eyes, 

Match us the star and rose; 
The winds that lift the Georgian's veil 5 

Or wave Circassia's curls. 
Waft to their shores the sultan's sail,— 

Who buys our Yankee girls! 

The gay grisette, whose fingers touch 

Love's thousand chords so well; 10 

The dark Itahan, loving much, 
But more than one can tell; 



5. The Georgian veil, Circassia's curls : The women of Georgia 
and Oircassia are world-famous for their beauty. 
9. Grisette : A Parisian work-girl. 



OUR YANKEE GIRLS 

And England's fair-haired^ blue-eyed dame. 
Who binds her brow with pearls; — 

Ye who have seen thein, can they shame 15 
Our own sweet Yankee girls? 

And what if court and castle vaunt 

Its children loftier born? — 
AVho heeds the silken tassel's flaunt 

Beside the golden corn? 20 

They ask not for the courtly toil 

Of ribboned knights and earls, 
The daughters of the virgin soil, 

Our freeborn Yankee girls! 

By every hill whose stately pines 25 

Wave their dark arms above 
The home where some fair being shines. 

To warm the wilds with love. 
From barest rock to bleakest shore 

Where farthest sail unfurls, 30 

That Stars and Stripes are streaming o'er, — 

God bless our Yankee girls! 



ILLUSTRATION OF A PICTURE 23 

ILLUSTEATION OF A PICTUKE 

"A Spanish Girl in Reverie." 

She twirled the string of golden beads, 
That round her neck was hung, — 

My grandsire's gift; the good old man 

. Loved girls when he was young; 

And, bending lightly o'er the cord, 5 

And turning half away, 

With something like a youthful sigh. 
Thus spoke the maiden gray: 

^^ Well, one may trail her silken robe. 

And bind her locks with pearls, 10 

And one may wreathe the woodland rose 

Among her floating curls; 
And one may tread the dewy grass. 

And one the marble floor, 
Nor half-hid bosom heave the less, 15 

Nor broidered corset more! 

" Some years ago, a dark-eyed girl 

Was sitting in the shade, — 
There's something brings her to my mind 

In that young dreaming maid, — 20 

And in her hand she held a flower, 

A flower, whose speaking hue 
Said, in the language of the heart, 

* Believe the giver true.' 



24 ILLUSTRATION OF A PICTURE 

" And, as she looked upon its leaves. 25 

The maiden made a vow 
To wear it when the bridal wreath 

Was woven for her brow; 
She watched the flower, as, day by day, 

The leaflets curled and died; 30 

But he who gave it, never came 

To claim her for his bride. 

" many a summer's morning glow 

Has lent the rose its ray, 
And many a winter's drifting snow 35 

Has swept its bloom away; 
But she has kept that faithless pledge 

To this, her winter hour. 
And keeps it still, herself alone. 

And wasted like the flower." 40 

Her pale lip quivered, and the light 

Gleamed in her moistening eyes; — 
I asked her how she liked the tints 

In those Castilian skies? 
" She thought them misty, — 'twas perhaps 

Because she stood too near; " — 46 

She turned away, and, as she turned, 

I saw her wipe a tear. 



THE LAST LEAF 25 

THE LAST LEAF* 

I SAW him once before, 
As he passed by the door, 

And again 
The pavement stones resound 
As he totters o'er the ground 5 

With his cane. 

They say that in his prime 
Ere the pruning-knife of Time 

Cut him down, 
Not a better man was found 10 

By the Crier on his round 

Through the town. 

But now he walks the streets, 
And looks at all he meets 

Sad and wan, 15 

And he shakes his feeble head. 
That it seems as if he said, 
They are gone." 



a 



* " If a gentleman of the betting fraternity were to propose placing 
a stake with me on ' the favorite ' in the race for the * Immortality 
cup,' I should name— not The Chambered Nautilus— hnl The Last 
Leaf:' Edgar Allan Poe transcribed this with his own hand ; Abraham 
Lincoln knew it by heart; the publishers selected it from all Dr. 
Holmes' poetry for printing by itself in an elaborately illustrated edi- 
tion. Thousands of persons can repeat every line of it. Such facts 
mean mnch.— John T. Morse, Jr. 

n. Crier: One who proclaims publicly sales, lost persons, goods, 
and the orders of a court. 



26 THE LAST LEAF 

The mossy marbles rest 

On the lips that he has prest 20 

In their bloom, 
And the names he loved to hear 
Have been carved for many a year 

On the tomb. 

My grandmamma has said, — 25 

Poor old lady, she is dead 

Long ago, — ^- 

That he had a Koman nose, 
And his cheek was like a rose 

In the snow. 30 

But now his nose is thin. 
And it rests upon his chin 

Like a staff. 
And a crook is in his back, 
And a melancholy crack 35 

In his laugh. 

19. The mossy marbles rest, etc.: " There are some quaint, queer 
verses," said Lincoln, talking to a friend, " written, I think, by Oliver 
Wendell Holmes, entitled The Last. Leaf, one of which is to me inex- 
pressibly touching." He then repeated the poem from memory, and 
as he finished the stanza 

" The mossy marbles rest 
On the lips that he had prest 

In their bloom. 
And the names he loved to hear 
Have been carved for many a year 
On the tomb," 
he said, " For pure pathos, in my judgment, there is nothing finer than 
those lines in the English language." 



TO AN INSECT 27 

I know it is a sin 
For me to sit and grin 

At him here; 
But the old three-cornered hat, 40 

And the breeches, and all that, 

Are so queer! 

And if I should live to be 
The last leaf upon the tree 

In the spring, — 45 

Let them smile, as I do now. 
At the old forsaken bough 

Where I cling. 

TO AN INSECT 

I LOVE to hear thine earnest voice, 

Wherever thou art hid. 
Thou testy little dogmatist, 

Thou pretty Katydid! 
Thou mindest me of gentle folks, — 5 

Old gentle folks are they, — 
Thou say'st an undisputed thing 

In such a solemn way. 

Thou art a female, Katydid! 

I know it by the trill 10 

That quivers through thy piercing notes. 

So petulant and shrill. 



28 TO AN INSECT 

1 think there is a knot of you 

Beneath the hollow tree, — 
A knot of spinster Katydids, — 15 

Do Katydids drink tea? 

tell me where did Katy live, 
And what did Katy do? 

And was she very fair and young. 

And yet so wicked, too? 20 

Did Katy love a naughty man, 
Or kiss more cheeks than one? 

1 warrant Katy did no more 
Than many a Kate has done. 

Dear me! I'll tell you all about 25 

My fuss with little Jane, 
And Ann, with whom I used to walk 

So often down the lane. 
And all that tore their locks of black. 

Or wet their eyes of blue, — 30 

Pray tell me, sweetest Katydid, 

What did poor Katy do? 

Ah no! the living oak shall crash, 

That stood for ages still. 
The rock shall rend its mossy base 35 

And thunder down the hill. 



THE MEETING OF THE DRYADS 2^ 

Before the little Katydid 

Shall add one word, to tell 
The mystic story of the maid 

Whose name she knows so well. 40 

Peace to the ever-murmiiring race! 

And when the latest one 
Shall fold in death her feeble wings 

Beneath the autumn sun, 
Then shall she raise her fainting voice 45 

And lift her drooping lid, 
And then the child of future years 

Shall hear what Katy did. 



THE MEETING OF THE DEYADS * 

It was not many centuries since, 

When, gathered on the moonlit green, 

Beneath the Tree of Liberty, 

A ring of weeping sprites was seen. 



* This poem was written just after the trees around Harvard College 
had been pruned. Holmes tells us that some time after writing it he 
was surprised and amused at finding a poem by Swift —on a similar 
occasion— from which the idea may have been unconsciously bor- 
rowed. " Th& Meeting of the Dryads, another early poem, is marked 
by so much grace that it seems as if the youth who wrote its quatrains 
might in time have added a companion piece to The Tailing Oak:'— 
E. C. Stedman. 

Dryads: In Ore 'k mythology, wood nymphs whose lives w 
bound up V. ''h the origin and decay of the trees in which they lived 



were 



30 THE MEETING OF THE DRYADS 

The freshman's himp had long been dim, 5 

The voice of busy day was mute, 
And tortured melody had ceased 

Her suiferings on the evening flute. 

They met not as they once had met. 

To laugh o'er many a jocund tale; 10 

But every pulse was beating low. 
And every cheek was cold and pale. 

There rose a fair but faded one, 

Who oft had cheered them with her song; 
She waved a mutilated arm, 15 

And silence held the listening throng. 

" Sweet friends," the gentle nymph began, 
" From opening bud to withering leaf. 

One common lot has bound us all. 

In every change of joy and grief. 20 

" While all around has felt decay. 

We rose in ever-living prime. 
With broader shade and fresher green, 

Beneath the crumbling step of Time. 

" When often by our feet has past 25 

Some biped, nature's walking whim. 

Say, have we trimmed one awkward shape, 
Or lopped away one crooked limb? 



THE MEETING OF THE DRYADS 31 

" Go on, fair Science; soon to thee 

Shall Nature yield her idle boast; 30 

Her vulgar fingers formed a tree. 

But thou hast trained it to a post. 

'^ Go paint the birch's silver rind. 

And quilt the peach with softer down; 

Up with the willow's trailing threads, 35 

Off with the sunflower's radiant crown! 

" Go plant the lily on the shore. 
And set the rose among the waves, 

And bid the tropic bud unbind 

Its silken zone in arctic caves; 40 

" Bring bellows for the panting winds, 

Hang up a lantern by the moon. 
And give the nightingale a fife. 

And lend the eagle a balloon! 

" I cannot smile, — the tide of scorn, 45 

That rolled through every bleeding vein, 

Comes kindling fiercer as it flows 
Back to its burning source again. 

" Again in every quivering leaf 

That moment's agony I feel, 50 

When limbs, that spurned the northern blast. 

Shrunk from the sacrilegious steel. 



32 THE MEETING OF THE DRYADS 

" A curse upon the wretch who dared 

To crop us with his felon saw! 
May every fruit his lip shall taste, 55 

Lie like a bullet in his maw. 

" In every julep that he drinks, 

May gout, and bile, and headache be; 

And when he strives to calm his pain, 

May colic mingle with his tea. 60 

" May nightshade cluster round his path. 
And thistles shoot, and brambles cling; 

May blistering ivy scorch his veins. 
And dogwood burn, and nettles sting. 

'^ On him may never shadow fall, 65 

When fever racks his throbbing brow, 

And his last shilling buy a rope 

To hang him on my highest bough! '^ 

She spoke; — the morning's herald beam 

Sprang from the bosom of the sea, 70 

And every mangled sprite returned 
In sadness to her wounded tree. 



THE COMET 33 



THE COMET* 



The Comet! He is on his way, 

And singing as he flies; 
The whizzing planets shrink before 

The specter of the skies; 
Ah! well may regal orbs burn blue, 5 

And satellites turn pale, 
Ten million cubic miles of head, 

Ten billion leagues of tail! 

On, on by whistling spheres of light. 

He flashes and he flames; 10 

He turns not to the left nor right, 

He asks them not their names; 
One spurn from his demoniac heel, — 

Away, away they fly. 
Where darkness might be bottled up 15 

And sold for " Tyrian dye." 

And what would happen to the land, 

And how would look the sea. 
If in the bearded devil's path 

Our earth should chance to be ? 20 



* The extravaganzas, The Comet and The Hot Season, are fair ex- 
amples of what is called " American humor," the point of which lies 
in exaggerating to the degree of absurdity. 



34 THE COMET 

Full hot and high the sea would boil. 
Full red the forests gleam; 

Methought I saAv and heard it all 
In a dyspeptic dream! 



I saw a tutor take his tube 25 

The Comet's course to spy; 
I heard a scream, — the gathered rays 

Had stewed the tutor's eye; 
I saw a fort, — the soldiers all 

Were armed with goggles green; 30 

Pop cracked the guns! whiz flew the balls! 

Bang went the magazine! 

I saw a poet dip a scroll 

Each moment in a tub, 
I read upon the warping back, 35 

'' The Dream of Beelzebub; " 
He could not see his verses burn, 

Although his brain was fried. 
And ever and anon he bent 

To wet them as they dried. 40 

I saw the scalding pitch roll down 

The crackling, sweating pines. 
And streams of smoke, like water-spouts. 

Burst through the rumbling mines; 



THE COMET 35 

I asked the firemen why the}^ made 45 

Such noise about the town; 
They answered not, — but all the while 

The brakes went up and down. 

I saw a roasting pullet sit 

Upon a baking egg: 50 

I saw a cripple scorch his hand 

Extinguishing his leg; 
I saw nine geese upon the wing 

Towards the frozen pole, 
And every mother's gosling fell 65 

Crisped to a crackling coal. 

I saw the ox that browsed the grass 

Writhe in the blistering rays, 
The herbage in his shrinking jaws 

Was all a fiery blaze; 60 

I saw huge fishes, boiled to rags. 

Bob through the bubbling waves; 
I listened, and I heard the dead 

All simmerin<2: in their o^raves! 



Strange sights! strange sounds! fearful dream! 



Its memory haunts me still, 
The steaming sea, the crimson glare. 
That wreathed each wooded hill; 



36 THE BALLAD OF THE OYSTERMAX 

Stranger! if through thy reeling brain 

Such midnight visions sweep, 70 

Spare, spare, spare thine evening meal, 
And sweet shall be thy sleep! 

THE BALLAD OF THE OYSTEEMAN 

It was a tall young oysterman lived by the river- 
side. 

His shop was just upon the bank, his boat was on 
the tide; 

The daughter of a fisherman, that was so straight 
and slim, 

Lived over on the other bank, right opposite to 
him. 

It was the pensive oysterman that saw a lonely 

maid, 5 

Upon a moonlight evening, a-sitting in the 

shade; 
He saw her wave her handkerchief, as much as if 

to say, 
" I'm wide awake, young oysterman, and all the 

folks away." 

Then up arose the oysterman, and to himself 

said he, 
" I guess I'll leave the skiif at home, for fear that 

folks should see; • 10 



THE BALLAD OF THE OYSTERMAN 37 

I read it in the story-book, that, for to kiss his 

dear, 
Leander swam the Hellespont,— and I will swim 

this here." 

And he has leaped into the waves, and crossed 

the shining stream. 
And he has clambered up the bank, all in the 

moonlight gleam; 
there were kisses sweet as dew, and words as 

soft as rain, — 15 

But they have heard her father's step, and in he 

leaps again! 

Out spoke the ancient fisherman, — " what was 
that, my daughter?" 

" 'Twas nothing but a pebble, Sir, 1 threw into 
the water; " 

" x\nd what is that, pray tell me, love, that pad- 
dles off so fast?" 

"It's nothing but a porpoise. Sir, that's been 
a-swimming past." 20 • 

Out spoke the ancient fisherman,— " Now bring 

me my harpoon! 
I'll get into my fishing-boat, and fix the fellow 



12. Leander swam the Hellespont : Leander, a youth of Abydos, 
the hero of a poem by Mussens and a ballad by Schiller, nightly swam 
across the Hellespont to visit Hero, his lady-love; he was finally 
drowned. The Hellespont is better known by its modern name, 
Dardanelles. 



38 LEXlNCnON 

Down fell that prett}^ innocent, as falls a snow- 
white lamb, 

Her hair drooped round her pallid cheeks, like 
seaweed on a clam. 

Alas for those two loving ones! she waked not 

from her s wound, 25 

And he was taken with the cramp, and in the 

waves was drowned; 
But Fate has metamorphosed them in pity of their 

woe, 
And now they keep an oyster-shop for mermaids 

down below. 



LEXINGTON 

Slowly the mist o'er the meadow was creeping, 

Bright on the dewy buds glistened the sun. 
When from his couch, while his children were 
sleeping, 
Eose the bold rebel and shouldered his gun. 

Waving her golden veil ^ 5 

Over the silent dale. 
Blithe looked the morning on cottage and spire; 
Hushed was his parting sigh. 
While from his noble eye 
Flashed the last sparkle of liberty's fire. 10 



LEXINGTON 39 

On the smooth green where the fresh leaf is 
springing 
Calmly the first-born of glory have met; 
Hark! the death-volley around them is ringing! 
Look! with their life-blood the young grass is 
wet! 

Faint is the feeble breath, 15 

Murmuring low in death, 
" Tell to our sons how their fathers have died; " 
Nerveless the iron hand, 
Eaised for its native land, 
Lies by the weapon that gleams at its side. 20 

Over the hillsides the wild knell is tolling, 

From their far hamlets the yeomanry come; 
As through the storm-clouds the thunderburst 
rolling. 
Circles the beat of the mustering drum. 

Fast on the soldier's path 25 

Darken the waves of wrath. 
Long have they gathered and loud shall they 
fall; 

Red glares the musket's flash, 
Sharp rings the rifle's crash. 
Blazing and clanging from thicket and wall. 30 

Gayly the plume of the horseman was dancing, 
Never to shadow his cold brow again; 



40 LEXINGTON 

Proudly at morning the war-steed was prancing, 
Eeeking and panting he droops on the rein; 

Pale is the lip of scorn, 35 

Voiceless the trumpet horn, 

Torn is the silken-fringed red cross on high; 
Many a belted breast 
Low on the turf shall rest. 

Ere the dark hunters the herd have past by. 40 



Snow-girdled crags where the hoarse wind is 
raving, 
Eocks where the weary floods murmur and 
wail. 
Wilds where the fern by the furrow is waving, 
Peeled with the echoes that rode on the gale; 

Far as the tempest thrills 45 

Over the darkened hills. 
Far as the sunshine streams over the plain, 
Roused by the tyrant band. 
Woke all the mighty land. 
Girded for battle, from mountain to main. 50 

Green be the graves where her martyrs are 

lying! 
Shroudless and tombless they sunk to their 

rest, 
AVhile o'er their ashes the starry fold flying 



THE MUSIC-GRrNDERS 41 

Wraps the proud eagle they roused from his 
nest. 

Borne on her northern pine, 55 

Long o'er the foaming brine 
Spread her broad banner to storm and to sun; 
Heaven keep her ever free. 
Wide as o'er land and sea 
Floats the fair emblem her heroes have won. 60 



THE MUSIC-GKINDEES 

There are three ways in which men take 

One's money from his purse, 
And very hard it is to tell 

Which of the three is worse; 
But all of them are bad enough 5 

To make a body curse. 

You're riding out some pleasant day, 

And counting up your gains; 
A fellow jumps from out a bush 

And takes your horse's reins, 10 

Another hints some words about 

A bullet in your brains. 

It's hard to meet such pressing friends 

In such a lonely spot; 
It's very hard to lose your cash, 15 

But harder to be shot; 



42 THE MUSIC-GRINDERS 

And so you take your wallet out, 
Though you would rather not. 

Perhaps you're going out to dine, — 

Some filthy creature begs 20 - 

You'll hear about the cannon ball 

That carried off his pegs, 
And says it is a dreadful thing 

For men to lose their legs. 

He tells you of his starving wife, 25 

His children to be fed. 
Poor little, lovely innocents. 

All clamorous for bread, — 
And so you kindly help to put 

A bachelor to bed. 30 

You're sitting on your window-seat 

Beneath a cloudless moon; 
You hear a sound, that seems to wear 

The semblance of a tune, 
As if a broken fife should strive 35 

To drown a cracked bassoon. 

And nearer, nearer still, the tide 

Of music seems to come. 
There's something like a human voice, 

And something like a drum; 40 

You sit, in speechless agony. 

Until your ear is numb. 



THE MUSIC-GRINDEES 43 

Poor '^ home, sweet home/' should seem to be 

A very dismal place; 
Your " auld acquaintance," all at once, 45 

Is altered in the face; 
Their discords sting through Burns and Moore, 

Like hedgehogs dressed in lace. 

You think they are crusaders, sent 

From some infernal clime, 50 

To pluck the eyes of Sentiment, 

And dock the tail of Ehyme, 
To crack the voice of Melody, 

And break the legs of Time. 

But hark! the air again is still, 65 

The music all is ground. 
And silence, like a poultice, comes 

To heal the blows of sound; 
It cannot be, — ^it is, — it is, — 

A hat is going round! 60 

No! Pay the dentist when he leaves 

A fracture in your jaw. 
And pay the owner of the bear. 

That stunned you with his paw, 
And buy the lobster, that has had 65 

Your knuckles in his claw; 

47. Burns and Moore : Robert Burns (1759-1796), a Scotch poet, and 
Thomas Moore (1779-1852), an Irish poet, whose popular melodies were 
favorites with the street-musicians of Holmes' youth. 



44 • THE HEIGHT OF THE RIDICULOUS 

But if you are a portly man. 

Put on your fiercest frown, 
And talk about a constable 

To turn them out of town; 70 

Then close your sentence with an oath, 

And shut the window down! 

And if you are a slender man, 

Not big enough for that. 
Or, if you cannot make a speech, 75 

Because you are a flat, 
Go very quietly and drop 

A button in the hat! 

THE HEIGHT OF THE EIDICULOUS 

I WROTE some lines once on a time 

In wondrous merry mood, 
And thought, as usual, men would say 

They were exceeding good. 

They were so queer, so very queer, 5 

I laughed as I would die; 
Albeit, in the general way, 

A sober man am I. 

I called my servant, and he came; 

How kind it was of him, 10 

To mind a slender man like me. 

He of the mighty limb! 



THE HOT SEASON 45 

" These to the printer/' I exclaimed, 

And, in my humorous way, 
I added, (as a trifling jest,) 15 

" There'll be the devil to pay." 

He took the paper, and I watched, 

And saw him peep within; 
At the first line he read, his face 

Was all upon the grin. 20 

He read the next; the grin grew broad. 

And shot from ear to ear; 
He read the third; a chuckling noise 

I now began to hear. 

The fourth; he broke into a roar; 25 

The fifth; his waistband split; 
The sixth; he burst five buttons off. 

And tumbled in a fit. 

Ten days and nights, with sleepless eye, 
I watched that wretched man, 30 

And since, I never dare to write 
As funny as I can. 

THE HOT SEASON 

The folks, that on the first of May 

Wore winter-coats and hose. 
Began to say, the first of June, 

^^ Good Lord! how hot it grows.'^ 



46 THE HOT SEASON 

At last two Fahrenheits blew up, 5 

And killed two children small, 
And one barometer shot dead 

A tutor with its ball! 

Now all da}^ long the locusts sang 

Among the leafless trees; 10 

Three new hotels warped inside out, 

The pumps could only wheeze; 
And ripe old wine, that twenty years 

Had cobwebbed o'er in vain. 
Came spouting through the rotten corks 15 

Like Joly's best Champagne! 

The Worcester locomotives did 

Their trip in half an hour; 
The Lowell cars ran forty miles 

Before they checked the power; 20 

Eoll brimstone soon became a drug. 

And loco-focos fell; 
All asked for ice, but everywhere 

Saltpeter was to sell! 

Plump men of mornings ordered tights, 25 
But, ere the scorching noons, 

5. Fahrenheits: Thermometers, named from a German physicist, 
G. D. Fahrenheit, on whose scales the freezing point of water is 32° 
and its boiling pofnt 212°. 

16. Joly's best champagne : A fine brand of wine. 

22. Loco-focos: Friction matches. The word foco-/oc<? was intended 
to mean self-lighting, being invented on the model of locomotive, 
erroneously supposed to mean self -moving. 



THE HOT SEASON 4*7 

Their candle-molds had grown as loose 

As Cossack pantaloons! 
The dogs ran mad, — men could not try 

If water they would choose; 30 

A. horse fell dead, — he only left 

Four red-hot, rusty shoes! 

But soon the people could not bear 

The slightest hint of fire; 
Allusions to caloric drew 35 

A flood of savage ire; 
The leaves on heat were all torn out 

From every book at school, 
And many blackguards kicked and caned. 

Because they said, — '•' Keep cool! " 40 

The gaslight companies were mobbed, 

The bakers all were shot. 
The penny press began to talk 

Of lynching Doctor Nott; 
And all about the warehouse steps 45 

Were angry men in droves, 
Crashing and splintering through the doors. 

To smash the patent stoves! 



35. Caloric : " A hypothetical fluid formerly supposed to produce 
the phenomena of heat ; the word is loosely used for heat." 

44. Doctor Nott : Eliphalet Nott (1773-1866), a Connecticut clergy- 
man, who studied physical science, especially the laws of heat, and 
invented the first stove for burning anthracite coal. 



48 THE WASP AND THE HORNET 

The abolition men and maids 

Were tanned to such a hue, 50 

You scarce could tell them from their friends, 

Unless their eyes were blue; 
And when I left, society 

Had burst its ancient guards, 
And Brattle Street and Temple Place 55 

Were interchanging cards! 

THE WASP AND THE HORNET* 

The two proud sisters of the sea. 

In glory and in doom! 
Well may the eternal waters be 

Their broad, unsculptured tomb! 
The wind that rings along the wave, 5 

The clear, unshadowed sun. 
Are torch and trumpet o'er the brave, 

Whose last green wreath is won! 

No stranger-hand their banners furled. 
No victor's shout they heard; 10 

Unseen, above them ocean curled. 
Save by his own pale bird; 

55. Brattle Street and Temple Place : The social antipodes of 
Boston. 

* The Wasp, commanded by Captain Jones, and the Hornet, com- 
manded by Captain Lawrence, were American ships-of-war, distin- 
guished for their services in the War of 1812. 



" QUI VIVE ! " 49 

The gnashing billows heaved and fell; 

Wild shrieked the midnight gale; 
Far, far beneath the morning swell 15 

AVere pennon, spar, and sail. 

The land of Freedom! sea and shore 

Are guarded now, as when 
Her ebbing waves to victory bore 

Fair barks and gallant men; 30 

many a ship of prouder name 

May wave her starry fold, 
Nor trail, with deeper light of fame, 

The paths they swept of old! 

"QUI VIVE!" 

" Qui vive! " The sentry's musket rings, 

The channeled bayonet gleams; 
High o'er him like a raven's wings 
The broad tri-colored banner flings 
Its shadow, rustling as it swings 5 

Pale in the moonlight beams; 
Pass on! while steel-clad sentries keep 
Their vigil o'er the monarch's sleep, 

Thy bare, unguarded breast 
Asks not the unbroken, bristUng zone 10 

That girds yon sceptered trembler's throne;— 

Pass on, and take thy rest! 

" 4. The broad tri-colored banner : The French flag. 



50 



" Qui vive! " How oft the midnight air 

That startling cry has home! 
How oft the evening hreeze has fanned 15 

The hanner of this haughty hmd, 
O'er mountain snow and desert sand, 

E'er yet its folds were torn! 
Through Jena's carnage flying red, 
Or tossing o'er Marengo's dead, 20 

Or curling on the towers 
Where Austria's eagle quivers yet, " 
And suns the ruffled plumage wet 

With battle's crimson showers! 

''Qui vive!'' And is the sentry's cry, 25 

The sleepless soldier's hand, — 
Are these, — the painted folds that fly 
And lift their emblems printed high 
On morning mist and sunset sky, — 

The guardians of a land? 30 

No! If the patriot's pulses sleep, 
How vain the watch that hirelings keep, 

The idle flag that waves, 
When conquest, with his iron heel 
Treads down the standards and the steel 35 
That belt the soil of slaves! 

19. Jena: In the battle of Jena, October 14,1806, the French forces 
under Napoleon defeated the Prussians. 

20. Marengo : In the battle of Marengo. June 14, 1800, Napoleon 
defeated tlio Austrians under General Melas. 

23. Austria's Eagle : The national ensign. 



51 



URANIA 

URANIA * 

A KHYMED LESSON 

Yes, dear Enchantress, wandering far and long, 
In realms unperfumed by the breath of song. 
Where flowers ill-flavored shed their sweets 

around. 
And bitterest roots invade the ungenial ground, 
Whose gems are crystals from the Epsom mine, 
Whose vineyards flow with antimonial wine, 6 
Whose gates admit no mirthful feature in. 
Save one gaunt mocker, the Sardonic grin, 
Whose pangs are real, not the woes of rhyme 
That blue-eyed misses warble out of time; 10 

Truant, not recreant to thy sacred claim, 
Older by reckoning, but in heart the same. 
Freed for a moment from the chains of toil, 
I tread once more thy consecrated soil; 
Here at thy feet my old allegiance own, 15 

Thy subject still, and loyal to thy t hrone! 

* Urania : It was customary for poets to begin poems by an invo- 
cation of, or a dedication to, one of the nine muses-frequently, as in 
this case Urania, the heavenly one. 

Thrpoem w.s delivered before the Boston Mercantile Library 
Association. October 14, 1846. 

6 Antimonial wine : Wine medicated with tartaremetic. 

8 Sardonic grin: Mocking smiles, " caused, as was supposed, by 
a plant growing in Sardinia, of which they who ate died laughwig. - 
Trench. 



52 iJRANiA 

My dazzled glance explores the crowded hall; 
Alas, how vain to hope the smiles of all! 
I know my audience; all the gay and young 
Love the light antics of a playful tongue, 20 

And these, remembering some expansive line 
My lips let loose among the nuts and wine, 
Are all impatience till the opening pun 
Proclaim the witty shamfight is begun. 
Two-fifths at least, if not the total half, 25 

Have come infuriate for an earthquake laugh; 
I know full well what alderman has tied 
His red bandanna tight about his side; 
I see the mother, who, aware that boys 
Perform their laughter with superfluous noise, 
Eeside her kerchief, brought an extra one 31 

To stop the explosions of her bursting son; 
I know a tailor, once a friend of mine. 
Expects great doings in the button line; — 
For mirth's concussions rip the outward case 35 
And plant the stitches in a tenderer place; — 
I know my audience; these shall have their due, 
A smile awaits them ere my song is through! 

I know myself; not servile for applause, 
My Muse permits no deprecating clause; 40 

Modest or vain, she will not be denied 
One bold confession, due to honest pride. 
And well she knows, the drooping veil of song 



URANIA 53 

Shall save her boldness from the caviler's wrong; 
Her sweeter voice the Heavenly Maid imparts 45 
To tell the secrets of our aching hearts; 
For this, a suppliant, captive, prostrate, bound. 
She kneels imploring at the feet of sound; 
For this, convulsed in thought's maternal pains. 
She loads her arms with rhyme's resounding 
chains; 50 

Faint though the music of her fetters be. 
It lends one charm; her lips are ever free! 

Think not I come, in manhood's fiery noon. 
To steal his laurels from the stage buffoon; 
His sword of lath the harlequin may wield; 55 
Behold the star upon my lifted shield! 
Though the just critic pass my humble name, 
And sweeter lips have drained the cup of fame. 
While my gay stanza pleased the banquet's lords, 
The soul within was tuned to deeper chords! 60 
Say, shall my arms, in other conflicts taught 
To swing aloft the ponderous mace of thought. 
Lift, in obedience to a school-girl's law. 
Mirth's tinsel wand or laughter's tickling straw? 
Say, shall I wound with satire's rankling spear 
The pure, warm hearts that bid me welcome 
here? 66 

55. Harlequin : A leading character in a pantomime. 

59. \A/hile my gfay stanza, etc.: Holmes here intimates the truth 
that " his brilliant occasional poems were only the glitter on the sur- 
face, while below lay unnoted depths of feeling and thought." 



URANIA 



No! while I wander through the land of dreams 
To strive with great and play with trifling themes. 
Let some kind meaning fill the varied line; 
You have your judgment; will you trust to mine? 



Between two breaths what crowded mysteries 
lie, — 
The first short gasp, the last and long-drawn 

sigh! 
Like phantoms painted on the magic slide, 
Forth from the darkness of tlie past we glide, 
As living shadows for a moment seen 75 

In airy pageant on the eternal screen, 
Traced by a ray from one unchanging flame. 
Then seek the dust and stillness whence we came. 

But whence and why, our trembling souls in- 
quire. 
Caught these dim visions their awakening fire? 

who forgets, when first the piercing thought 
Through childhood's musings found its way un- 
sought, 

1 AM. I LIVE. The mystery and the fear 
When the dread question — What has brought 

ME HERE? 

Burst through life's twilight, as before the sun 
Roll the deep thunders of the morning gun! 86 



tlRAKlA 



Are angel faces, silent arid serene, 
Bent on the conflicts of this little scene, 
Whose dream-like efforts, whose unreal strife 
Are but the preludes to a larger life? 90 

Or does hfe's summer see the end of all. 
These leaves of being moldering as they fall, 
As the old poet vaguely used to deem. 
As Wesley questioned in his youthful dream? 
could such mockery reach our souls indeed, 95 
Give back the Pharaohs' or the Athenian's creed; 
Better than this a Heaven of man's device,— 
The Indian's sports, the Moslenrs paradise! 

Or is our being's only end and aim 
To add new glories to our Maker's name, 100 

As the poor insect, shriveling in the blaze. 
Lends a faint sparkle to its streaming rays? 
Does earth send upwards to the Eternal's ear 
The mingled discords of her jarring sphere 
To swell his anthem, while Creation rings 105 
With notes of anguish from its shattered strings? 
Is it for this the immortal Artist means 
These conscious, throbbing, agonized machines? 

Dark is the soul whose sullen creed can bind 
In chains like these the all-embracing Mind; 110 

^"^TjohT^VV^esToTOS^lTGlTr^n^^ng^ divine, founder of 

Methodism. „ , 

95. O could such mockery, etc.: Better, says Holmes, aro pagan 
fables than the views of gloomy religionists. 



56 URANIA 

No! two-faced bigot^ thou dost ill reprove 
The sensual, selfish, yet benignant Jove, 
And praise a tyrant throned in lonely pride, 
Who loves himself, and cares for nought beside; 
Who gave thee, summoned from primeval night, 
A thousand laws, and not a single right; 116 

A heart to feel and quivering nerves to thrill. 
The sense of wrong, the death-defying will; 
Who girt thy senses with this goodly fmme, 
Its earthly glories and its orbs of fiame, 120 

Not for thyself, unworthy of a thought. 
Poor helpless victim of a life unsought, 
But all for him, unchanging and supreme. 
The heartless center of thy frozen scheme! 

Trust not the teacher with his lying scroll, 125 
Who tears the charter of thy shuddering soul: 
The God of love, who gave the breath that warms 
All living dust in all its varied forms. 
Asks not the tribute of a world like this 
To fill the measure of his perfect bliss. 130 

Though winged with life through all its radiant 

shores. 
Creation flowed with unexhausted stores 
Cherub and seraph had not yet enjoyed; 
For this he called thee from the quickening void! 

112. Jove : Jupiter, the supreme god of the Greeks and Romans. 



URANIA 57 

Nor this alone; a larger gift was thine, 135 

A mightier purpose swelled his vast design; 
Thought, — conscience, — will, — to make them all 

thine own. 
He rent a pillar from the eternal throne! 

Made in His image, thou must nobly dare 
The thorny crown of sovereignty to share; 140 
With eye uplifted it is thine to view 
From thine own center. Heaven's o'erarching blue; 
S^o round thy heart a beaming circle lies 
No fiend can blot, no hypocrite disguise; 
From all its orbs one cheering voice is heard, 145 
Full to thine ear it bears the Father's word, 
Now, as in Eden where his first-born trod: 
" Seek thine own welfare, true to man and 
God! " ' 

Think not too meanly of thy low estate; 
Thou hast a choice; to choose is to create! 150 
Eemember whose the sacred lips that tell. 
Angels approve thee when thy choice is well; 
Eemember, One, a judge of righteous men. 
Swore to spare Sodom if she held but ten! 154 
Use well the freedom which thy Master gave, 
(Think'st thou that Heaven can tolerate a slave?) 
And he who made thee to be just and true 
Will bless thee, love thee, — ^ay, respect thee too! 

154. Swore to spare Sodom : Cf. Gen. xviii. 17-3S. 



58 URAT^IA 

Nature has placed thee on a changeful tide, 
To breast its waves, but not without a guide; IGO 
Yet, as the needle will forget its aim, 
Jarred by the fury of the electric flame, 
As the true current it will falsely feel. 
Warped from its axis by a freight of steel; 164 
So will thy CONSCIENCE lose its balanced truth 
If passion's lightning fall upon thy youth; 
So the pure impulse quit its sacred hold. 
Girt round too deeply with magnetic gold. 

Go to yon tower, where busy science plies 
Her vast antenna feeling through the skies; 
That little vernier on whose slenr'er lines 171 
The midnight taper trembles as it shines, 
A silent index, tracks the planets' march 
In all their wanderings through the ethereal arch, 
Tells through the mist where dazzled Mercury 
burns, 175 

And marks the spot where Uranus returns. 

So, till by wrong or negligence effaced. 
The living index which thy Maker traced 
Eepeats the line each starry Virtue draws 
Through the wide circuit of creation's laws: 
Still tracks unchanged the everlasting ray 181 
Where the dark shadows of temptation stray; 



171. Vernier : The vernier scale (so called from its inventor, Pierre 
Vernier) consists of a movable scale to obtain fractional parts on a fixed 
scale, in instruments of precision. 



tJRANiA 50 

But, once defaced, forgets the orbs of. light. 
And leaves thee wandering o'er the expanse of 
night! 



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